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A Roman politician and general, Publius Quinctilius Varus was selected by Emperor Augustus to serve as governor of the provinces of Germania Inferior and Germania Superior. He has been directed to oversee their transformation from a client-state into a taxpaying province of the Roman Empire, which will be called Germania Magna.

His paternal grandfather was senator Sextus Quinctilius Varus. Varus was a patrician, born to an aristocratic but long-impoverished and unimportant family in the Quinctilius gens. His mother was a daughter from consul Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor's first marriage. His father was Sextus Quinctilius Varus, a senator aligned with the conservative republicans in the civil war against Julius Caesar. Sextus survived their defeat, but it is unknown whether he was involved in Caesar's assassination. He committed suicide after the Battle of Philippi (710).

Despite his father's political allegiances, Varus became a supporter of Caesar's heir, Octavian, later known as Augustus. About 740 he married Vipsania Marcella, the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Claudia Marcella Major and became a personal friend of both Agrippa and Augustus. Vipsania Marcella was a grandniece of Augustus. When Agrippa died, it was Varus who delivered the funeral eulogy. Thus, his political career was boosted and his cursus honorum finished as early as 741, when he was elected consul junior partner of Tiberius, Augustus' stepson and Imperial heir.

Between 745 and 746, following the consulship, Varus was governor of the province of Africa. After this, he went to govern Syria, with four legions under his command. He took swift action against a messianic revolt in Judaea after the death of Rome's client king Herod the Great in 750. After occupying Jerusalem, he crucified 2000 Jewish rebels, his cruelty became one of the prime objects of popular anti-Roman sentiment in Judaea. Indeed, at precisely this moment, the Jews, nearly en masse, began a full-scale boycott of Roman pottery (Red Slip Ware).

Following the governorship of Syria, Varus returned to Rome and remained there for the next few years. Following his first wife's death, he married Claudia Pulchra, daughter of Claudia Marcella Minor (daughter of consul Gaius Claudius Marcellus Minor and Octavia Minor, elder sister of Augustus) and consul Aemilius Lepidus Paullus (nephew of Triumvir Marcus Aemilius Lepidus). She was a great niece of Augustus, which shows that Varus still enjoyed political favour. They had a son, Quinctilius Varus.

When the Germanian region was declared pacified in 760, Varus was appointed to govern it.